Decorating Gingerbread Houses- A Christmas Tradition

Every year we decorate gingerbread houses for Christmas.  It's a great project to do with the children in the week off right before the big day because it gives them something fun to do for hours.  Sometimes I have made them out of graham crackers and sometimes I just buy the kits.

This year I was looking for the kits on sale. Usually you can find them for $3.99 each.  But this year no matter what store it was the price was hovering around $9.99.  Multiply that by 4 and you can see why I was reluctant to buy them for the kids.  But then I went to Walmart and found a mini gingerbread village set for $8.99.  It contained 5 houses that are about half the size of the standard ones plus all the candies, cardboard mats to put them on, and super fast setting icing.




I have to say that the icing was the best part. Usually I either make it or use the kit stuff but this version was amazing. It sets up ultra fast so instead of holding the pieces together for 15 minutes I was done in about 3.  Eldest daughter and I put them all together for the younger kids while listening to Christmas carols.

The children loved putting the candies on and were so excited.